About the Institute for Research on Women

At the forefront of feminist research for over thirty years, the Institute for Research on Women (IRW) advances interdisciplinary scholarship on gender, sexuality and women. Part of the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, IRW was founded in the mid-1970s by faculty and administrators seeking to expand feminist scholarship and activism beyond the university’s fledgling Women’s Studies program. Today, IRW supports a broad range of programming designed to stimulate research and activism on gender, sexuality and women within and across the disciplines, throughout and beyond Rutgers. Promoting faculty and student connections and building intellectual community are also central to IRW’s mission. Affiliate members of IRW currently include almost 900 faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates drawn from a wide range of disciplines at the New Brunswick, Newark and Camden campuses. At Rutgers, IRW is a member of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, a consortium of 9 different units at the university focused on women and gender. IRW also collaborates with centers and institutions beyond Rutgers, including the Weeks Center for Social and Policy Research at London South Bank University and Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género (PUEG) at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).